Working with businesses

From micro-enterprises to multinational corporations, we work with every type of business. Our reach stretches worldwide, with ideas to suit every scale and sector.

Small and growing businesses play a crucial role in job creation and promoting economic recovery and growth.

In 2010, we:
• Approved four out of every five business lending applications in the UK
• Supported more than 106,000 business start-ups, an increase of 12 per cent over 2009
• Returned to sound financial health 80 per cent of the UK SME customers who worked with our Business Support Team
• Offered free seminars to UK businesses and provided training for more than 50,000 business owners over the last four years
• Developed new products and services such as a dedicated SME telephone helpline and CreditFocus, a free credit checking service for UK customers. Around 800,000 companies have been credit checked since the service began, and we have helped businesses to recover £45m of unpaid invoices
• Launched Barclaycard Freedom, a loyalty scheme that allows small independent retailers to leverage scale and customer base and thereby compete with bigger brands. The scheme was launched in March 2010, and now has 30,000 merchants participating.

Supporting corporate, governmental and institutional clients

Barclays provides financing, risk management and advisory services to help corporate clients create jobs and grow their businesses, institutional clients to meet the investment needs of an ageing population, and governmental clients to deliver growth and stability.